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Tubefilter News is the leading authority in the web television space and exhaustively covers the industry, the creators, and the stars of this fast-paced, emerging entertainment market.

YouTube star Jimmy Wong isn't the only digital creator to make his big-screen debut in a highly-anticipated remake.
The iconic director Steven Spielberg, who is readying a reboot of the classic Broadway musical-turned film, West Side Story, has tapped 17-year-old high school student Rachel Zegler in the starring role of Maria. The New Jersey-born, Columbian-American actress, who frequently posts covers on her YouTube channel (95,000 subscribers) and Instagram account (70,000 followers), rep...

A data privacy activist has targeted YouTube, Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Spotify, and Soundcloud, alleging in official complaints that they're all in violation of sweeping data protection legislation the European Union put into effect in May 2018.
Max Schrems and his Austria-based advocacy organization None of Your Business say all of these giants, as well as Austrian video-on-demand platform Flimmit and U.K.-based sports video distributor DAZN, aren't meeting requirements laid out by Articl...

Exactly one year after announcing gen:LOCK, its biggest animated production since RWBY -- which holds the distinction of being the first American anime to be exported to Japan -- the trailer has arrived for Rooster Teeth's second western anime series.
gen:LOCK takes place fifty years in the future, when an authoritarian force threatens to conquer the world. A daring team of pilots is recruited to head into battle using weaponized machines that require great sacrifice to use. The series will o...

Shane Dawson has unveiled his next project.
The YouTube filmmaker's last venture was the much-hyped, semi-controversial eight-part docuseries The Mind of Jake Paul, which has amassed over 152.6 million views in aggregate to date. Ever since it concluded in October, Dawson's channel — where he now counts nearly 20 million subscribers — has been noticeably absent of new content. Dawson told fans in December that he was planning another series with beauty guru Jeffree Star (the subject of h...

In its fourth quarter earnings yesterday, Netflix said that it now counts 139 million paying subscribers -- up from 110 million at the beginning of the year -- and reported annual revenues of $16 billion, marking growth of 35% over 2017.
Netflix, which just rolled out its biggest price hike to date, also touted viewership of some of its biggest hits this quarter, including Sandra Bullock's Bird Box, which it says was watched by 80 million households during its first four weeks on the service,...

Rooster Teeth-run RTX has announced its first powerhouse guests for this year's convention: YouTube stars Philip DeFranco and ProZD.
DeFranco runs the daily YouTube-based Philip DeFranco Show, where he takes a look at current events on YouTube and beyond. He's amassed more than 6.4 million subscribers on the platform. ProZD (aka SungWon Cho) is a professional voice actor who is responsible for characters in popular shows like Red vs. Blue and Crunchyroll's Anime Crimes Division. On YouTu...

As a key component of their very livelihoods, when Instagram influencers see their accounts hacked, they are apparently willing to go to great lengths to resume ownership.
In an investigation by Vice's Motherboard, citing documents and personal anecdotes from several Instagram creators -- including 24-year-old lifestyle blogger Lindsie 'Neon Gypsea' Comerford (41,500 followers, pictured above) -- the outlet found that creators are increasingly relying on ethical hackers to combat infiltration...

YouTube has suspended ads on the channel belonging to far-right British activist and political advisor Tommy Robinson, citing violations of its advertising policies.
Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon (he also goes by a handful of other aliases), is an advisor to the leader of the notoriously pro-Brexit and anti-Muslim political organization U.K. Independence Party (Ukip). On his YouTube channel, where he has 271,000 subscribers and has garnered 14.5 million views, ...

Moonbug, the U.K. and Los Angeles-based kids' content firm formed on the heels of the acquisition of Little Baby Bum -- the 13th most-viewed YouTube channel on earth -- and which also nabbed a cool $145 million in venture funding last December, has now tapped a storied digital media executive to help steer its American expansion.
Former Netflix exec Andy Yeatman has been named Moonbug's head of Americas, and will be based out of the company's new Los Angeles offices. In this role, Yeatman -...

With more and more people in India gaining access to the internet each year — up to more than 500 million now, compared to the U.S.'s estimated 292 million — the country has been called the next frontier for global internet access.
So it's no surprise leading digital content platforms like Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube have been putting serious muscle behind their Indian expansion efforts. For Netflix, which has already produced a number of Indian originals and is lined up to produce mor...

Amid unsubstantiated reports that Twitch's top dog, Tyler 'Ninja' Blevins, has been surpassed in subscribers on the platform -- which is a stat that Twitch doesn't publicly break out -- the 27-year-old has expressed his irritation with onlookers constantly trying to crown a successor.
While Ninja has by far and away the most Twitch followers, at 13.1 million, reports are circulating that two fellow creators are gaining ground -- or perhaps have even surpassed him -- in terms of subscr...

Josh Rimer, a 41-year-old travel vlogger with 33,000 YouTube subscribers, has just clinched the title of Mr. Gay Canada.
Rimer will represent his native Canada at the Mr. Gay World competition in South Africa this April. Mr. Gay World is an international pageant of sorts for gay men. According to its website, contestants are judged on their photographs, sports acumen, a runway show, and a swimsuit competition. "The delegate will treat his body as his temple and will be active and outgoing,"...

Alyx Weiss -- aka Ayydubs -- absolutely thrives on the cringe. In her popular series Hidden Camera Uber Pranks, she (a legit Uber driver) brings unsuspecting riders into her car, which is kitted out, of course, with hidden cameras. Once they're inside, the fun begins: Weiss drives them around, interacting with them in character all the while. And those characters can range from someone who has absolutely zero personal boundaries to someone who's prepping for an audition -- and therefore expec...

Jake Paul has been dropped by legal firm Loeb & Loeb for being difficult to work with and failing to make payment for services.
Court documents show that a Los Angeles judge recently approved the firm's request to be relieved as Paul's defense counsel in the case of Ellis Barbacoff vs Jake Paul et al, where the YouTube star is being sued for negligence, emotional distress, and battery.
The case was filed in 2017. Its plaintiff, Barbacoff, alleges that Paul and Team 10 members Kyler F...

BBTV Interactive, the one-year-old unit of BroadbandTV's multi-platform network dedicated to helming original games and mobile apps in conjunction with members of its talent roster, has unveiled its latest title.
BBTV has teamed with Los Angeles-based married creator duo Chad Wild Clay (6 million subscribers) and Vy Qwaint (3 million subscribers) to launch a mobile game titled Spy Ninja Network. While Chad has pursued other forms of content in the past, the couple are now squarely focused on...

YouTube is testing a new recommendation feature that will see blue tags appear below video description boxes on both mobile and desktop devices. These bubbles serve to further filter the recommended videos that appear in the right-hand column on desktops, and underneath videos on the YouTube app.
When clicked, the tags trigger a new list of more specific recommendations, reports The Verge, including videos that are related to the current clip by keyword, creator, topic, and more. In a screencap

YouTube is cracking down on risky stunts like the Bird Box and Tide Pod challenges.
The platform announced yesterday that it has updated its Community Guidelines to specifically include a section banning dangerous challenges and pranks. What it's clarifying, YouTube says in an FAQ about the new section, is the fact that content showing stunts capable of causing death "have no place on YouTube." It also says that updated policies now ban challenge and prank videos with "a perceived dange...

If names like BTS and BlackPink don't ring a bell, it's probably time to familiarize yourself with the K-Pop genre, which has taken YouTube by storm in recent months.
And in an incident that caused a mild panic among some of the genre's most fervent fans, the aforementioned K-Pop bands, as well as another girl group called Twice, saw several of their massively-viewed music videos temporarily removed from YouTube yesterday, reports Forbes, due to a false copyright claim. The videos -- includ...

Tim Stone, for the former Amazon executive who replaced Snap's first chief financial officer, Andrew Vollero, last May, is quitting "to pursue other opportunities," according to an SEC filing. Snap clarified that Stone's departure is "not related to any disagreement with us on any matter relating to our accounting, strategy, management, operations, policies, regulatory matters, or practices (financial or otherwise)."
Stone will remain onboard to assist in the search for his replacem...

If you're leery of heights, you might want to take a moment to prepare yourself, because today's pro YouTube creators have made a career of parkouring around some of the world's loftiest locales. Like this Hong Kong rooftop. And this London rooftop. And this Paris rooftop.
This roof-traversing (and cliff-traversing, and ocean-traversing...) team is seven-man, U.K.-based group STORROR: brothers Max and Benj Cave, brothers Callum and Sacha Powell, and their close friends Drew Taylor, Toby S...

Yesterday, streaming company Roku defended its widely criticized decision to allow infamous conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his company InfoWars to broadcast a channel to Roku's 23.8 million users. But after a significant outcry, it reneged, issuing a statement on Twitter last night saying it's "determind that the channel should be removed from our platform."
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Last month, Otter Media announced a layoff of 10% of its staff amid a reorganization that saw it bring gaming digital network Machinima under its auspices. The reorganization occurred as AT&T -- the parent company of both Otter and Machinima -- continues to pare down its digital properties in the wake of its Time Warner acquisition last summer.
Now, according to a letter circulating on social media, Machinima staffers and creators will be joining the Fullscreen network -- which is anothe...

Like a lot of middle school students, Joshua Weidling became entranced by music during adolescence. However, unlike many of his contemporaries, Weidling had the preternatural gumption to pursue his passion as a business, promoting local bands on MySpace and helping garner buzz for a total of roughly 80 live shows throughout his middle and high school careers -- each of which, he says, was attended by roughly 200 fans.
In college, Weidling decided to further these endeavors by launching a digita

Netflix has announced its largest-ever subscription price hike -- to the tune of between 13% and 18%, depending on the plan -- marking the fourth time that the company has upped fares in its 12-year history.
Netflix's basic plan, which lets subscribers only watch one screen simultaneously, will now cost $9 (up from $8), while its HD standard plan -- which is also its most popular -- will now cost $13 (up from $11). Finally, the company's 4K premium plan (which includes four screens max) wil...

We're back with another weekly installment of the Tubefilter Chart of the Top 50 Most Viewed US YouTube Channels. And a desintation full of nursery rhymes new and old is in the top spot.
Chart Toppers
Cocomelon - Nursery Rhymes has a solid hold on the second place position on our weekly Worldwide charts, but in the US it takes the top spot. The channel with a self-stated goal to "make learning a fun and enjoyable experience for kids" took home more than 489.9 million views during the week. I...

Shaving company Gillette's striking new campaign about ending toxic masculinity debuted yesterday on YouTube, and in less than 24 hours, it has garnered more than 5 million views — as well as hundreds of thousands of downvotes and a tidal wave of negative comments from YouTube users.
A voiceover in the ad (below) invokes Gillette's company slogan, asking, "Is this the best a man can get? Is it?" as the trailer rolls clips showing young boys bullying each other, as well as men exhibiti...

Nike is turning to Twitch, which boasts a bustling 'sneakerhead' community, to introduce its latest shoe launch. Beginning at 9 am ET today, the iconic athletics brand will live stream a press conference from its New York City headquarters, which will be broadcast on Twitch's homepage.
At the same time, pre- and post-show commentary will be furnished by FreshStock -- an interactive weekly show about sneaker culture that is produced by Twitch Studios, the company's in-house production unit. ...

Top talent agency Abrams Artists has tendered yet another hire within its digital division, naming TV vet Katina Kontarakis director of sales.
Kontarakis will be tasked with expanding Abrams' digital clients' careers into large-scale brand partnerships and media sponsorships. She will also work to expand Abrams' involvement in live events and activations involving digital creators. Abrams' digital efforts are housed within its alternative programming, digital media, licensing, and branding...

The egg that defeated Kylie Jenner is back.
Well, sort of.
In case you're not aware, a photo of a single brown egg became the most-liked post on Instagram this week, beating Jenner's February 2018 post introducing her then-newborn daughter Stormi. The egg currently has 42.7 million likes (up from 31.7 million yesterday), and its Instagram account, @world_record_egg, has been officially verified. (Jenner's photo has 18.5 million likes, up from 18.4 million.)
Now, the same brown egg has e...

The YouTube app has officially added a new feature that will enable users to swipe horizontally to advance through different videos. The swiping feature is rolling out this week on iOS, with Android to follow (presumably).
Swiping forward (to the right) will take viewers to the next recommended video in their cue, while a backwards swipe (to the left) will take viewers to the video that they just watched. In both instances, if a clip has not yet finished, the player will pick up where viewers...

Netflix just got burned.
Only days ahead of the planned Jan. 18 release of its much-hyped Fyre Festival documentary Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, Hulu has surprise dropped its own documentary, Fyre Fraud — and it, unlike Netflix's doc, features an exclusive interview with Fyre Festival head Billy McFarland.
(To be clear, this isn't the Fyre Fest docuseries Hulu picked up last year, which is being produced by Billboard, Mic, and The Cinemart, and will chronicle the events ...

Studio71, like Fullscreen before it, has announced the launch of a 360-degree talent management unit, signalling an evolution of sorts within the multi-channel network industry towards working in closer capacity with a smaller number of creators.
Studio71's new talent management unit is called Moxie and will operate out of its U.K. headquarters. (Studio71 is owned by Red Arrow Studios -- a division of the German media conglomerate ProSiebenSat.1). Moxie will seek to help its roster "break f...

NBCUniversal announced this morning that it plans to launch an in-house streaming service in early 2020, and it has chosen seasoned NBCUniversal TV exec Bonnie Hammer to lead the service's development.
The as-yet-unnamed service's subscription structure will be fairly close to Hulu's in that it'll be a mix of ad-supported and free tiers, but it will have one twist: An ad-supported tier will be offered for free to all 52 million subscribers of Comcast (NBCUniversal's parent company) an...

James Charles may not want fans to show up at his house unbid, but he's clearly grateful when they show up to his public appearances in hordes.
Charles traveled to Toronto over the weekend to headline the opening of the first-ever Morphe storefront in Canada. Charles recently collaborated with the socially savvy beauty brand to great success with the launch of a blockbuster eyeshadow palette that is currently sold out and pending a third restock. "I just got word that over 10,000 sisters s...

A photo of a single brown egg has become the most-liked post on Instagram, dethroning reality TV star and beauty entrepreneur Kylie Jenner's February 2018 introduction of her daughter, Stormi.
The Instagram account behind the photo, @world_record_egg, made its top post just 10 days ago. "Let's set a world record together and get the most-liked post on Instagram," it captioned the photo, hashtagging it #LikeTheEgg, #EggSoldiers, and #EggGang.
At the time of posting, the egg has crack...

Indian record label and Bollywood film company T-Series has signed a deal with streamer Spotify for worldwide distribution of its entire music catalog, including movie soundtracks and content from emerging artists.
The deal had been rumored for some time, with T-Series' managing director Bhushan Kumar saying in November, "We are bullish about India's most popular music company tying up with the world's most popular music streaming service."
Now, thanks to the official partnership, Sp...

It's another weekly installment of the Tubefilter Chart of the Top 50 Most Viewed YouTube Channels Worldwide. And T-Series is - you guessed it - still on top.
Chart Toppers
T-Series is still in the top spot on the charts and it's still there by a LOT. The Indian music record label and film production company dipped 3% in its weekly view count, but still amassed an amazing 692 million views. Holding strong a few hundred millions behind in second place is Cocomelon. The online video destinatio...

At this point, it seems like beleaguered YouTube star Logan Paul makes courting controversy a New Year's resolution.
After temporarily torpedoing his career last January with a vlog that showcased a suicide victim, Paul is kicking off 2019 with another inflammatory video. Last week, he told viewers of his Impaulsive podcast that he wants to try living life as a gay man for one month. Paul, who shared that he's kicking off the New Year vegan and sober, also said that he intends to abstain f...

In a not-too-distant future, on an Earth a step left from ours, nanotechnology meant to protect people from the effects of global warming instead sparked the spread of a deadly virus. Now, in the post-pandemic world of Phoenix Run, those still alive have all been changed -- some seemingly for the better, and some for the much, much worse.
Originally created back in 2014, the Phoenix Run you can watch in full below is a short film meant to act as a glimpse of what independent creators, writer...

Twitch has suspended an esports pro named Joseph "Mang0" Marquez for drunkenly passing out mid-stream.
While Marquez denies that he actually passed out due to drinking too much Blue Moon earlier this week, a clip of the alleged incident on YouTube (below) sees him guzzling beer as his eyes slowly start to drift, whereupon he suddenly falls out of his chair. On Twitter, Marquez claimed that he jokingly fell over on purpose before taking a brief break from the stream to go talk to his girlfr...

Heather and Michael Martin, the parents behind now-infamous YouTube channel DaddyOFive -- who were convicted in September 2017 of emotionally and physically abusing their children -- have had their sentences reduced.
The pair were originally sentenced to five years of supervised probation. With their reduced sentence, the number of years they'll be on probation hasn't been lessened, but the Martins have been dropped from supervised to unsupervised probation, and they'll also now be allow...

Talent agency CAA has signed Dr DisRespect, one of the foremost personalities on Twitch, for representation in all areas of his career, including TV, film, touring, digital distribution, partnerships, endorsements, personal appearances, and book publishing.
Thirty-six-year-old Dr DisResepct, whose real name is Herschel 'Guy' Beahm IV, has accrued 3 million followers and 100 million lifetime views on the platform -- as well as 800,000 YouTube subscribers -- thanks to his streams of battle ro...

NBCUniversal this week unveiled the final touches on Bluprint, its "state-of-the-art lifestyle learning platform," designed to pull the cable TV giant more firmly into the business of e-commerce enabled by its increasingly digital operations. Along the way, I think they're also creating a potentially lucrative home for a new kind of cross-platform influencer.
In May of 2017, Comcast-owned NBCU bought Craftsy - then a six-year-old, Denver-based how-to site that sold supplies and a la carte v...

As of Jan. 31, YouTube is getting rid of automated Twitter updates -- or the formulaic Tweets that can be sent out (pictured above) whenever a creator or viewer engages in activity on YouTube, including posting or 'liking' videos.
The elimination of the feature, which will also apply to automated posts on Google+, was due to the fact that "social sharing works better when the message is more customized and takes advantage of social media features, such as @mentions," YouTube wrote in a post...

YouTube is clarifying its policies around profanity, and how using swear words affects monetization.
In a video posted yesterday on its Creator Insider channel -- as well as in a new Help Center article -- YouTube says it takes three main factors into account when making a judgement about ad-friendliness: the title, thumbnail, and how often profanity is used at the beginning of a video (presumably in close proximity to when an ad would play).
YouTube puts swear words into three categories -- m

Creator couple Angie and Chad Griffin met online more than a decade ago, and after being YouTube creators for nine years, they still like to keep things old-school. Just the two of them, mostly homemade props, and a simple green screen. But rest assured, the Griffins kicking it old school doesn't mean their channel, Screen Team, is behind the times. They regularly serve up parody songs, intricate cosplays, and a wealth of other geeky content about the latest films and video games -- and now, t...

Content studio Portal A has sealed a partnership with talent and content hub Wheelhouse Entertainment to offer their combined collaborative resources to shared clients including media platforms, brands, and ad agencies.
The deal also sees Wheelhouse - which was founded last year by former ITV America CEO Brent Montgomery and recently launched Kimmelot, an entertainment production venture with partner Jimmy Kimmel - become Portal A's first outside investor since the studio was founded by N...

It's a new year and another weekly installment of the Tubefilter Chart of the Top 50 Most Viewed YouTube Channels Worldwide. And in the transition from 2018 to 2019, nothing much has changed.
Chart Toppers
T-Series is still in the top spot on the charts by a LOT. The Indian music record label and film production company stayed relatively constant in its weekly view count, clocking almost 716.9 million views in seven days. Far behind in second place is Cocomelon. The online video destination f...

"Baby Shark," the addictive children's song courtesy of South Korean media brand Pinkfong, has entered the Billboard Hot 100 charts at No. 32 this week after ascending to viral heights on YouTube.
The video for "Baby Shark," a singalong in which a family of sharks is introduced and then proceeds to go hunting, has been viewed 2.2 billion times on YouTube, making it the platform's 25th most-viewed video of all time. Billboard said that a majority of the song's spins -- 73% of 20.8 million to...

The father of a family YouTube channel with more than 15 million subscribers is facing backlash after a Twitter user dug up footage showing him apparently taking a toddler (who is not one of his children) into an adult store and purchasing her a penis-shaped lollipop.
"Guys, I'm in so much trouble," Austin McBroom of The ACE Family says in the video he apparently recorded. "But she said she was gonna steal it if I didn't buy it, so…"
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Instagram is rolling out a new feature that could be of use to influencers who operate multiple accounts -- including separate channels for personal and business posts.
Now, creators can re-gram feed posts to several different accounts simultaneously, an Instagram spokesperson confirmed to Techcrunch. The feature is currently only available to iOS users, and shows up in the posting process via a new composer screen, whereby users can toggle the different accounts that they'd like to share t...

Jake Paul's controversial 'Bird Box challenge' video has been pulled from YouTube after widespread backlash against the risky stunts he and fellow YouTuber George Janko performed while blindfolded.
YouTube confirmed that it has pulled down other Bird Box challenge videos for violating guidelines that prohibit content encouraging dangerous activities that could result in physical harm. The company also confirmed that it age-restricted and demonetized Paul's video — presumably for viol...

Come 2019, Lilly Singh is slightly pumping the brakes on her flagship YouTube channel, which has amassed 14 million subscribers over the course of eight years.
After announcing a brief hiatus in November to focus on her mental health and recharge her creative batteries, Singh temporarily returned for her annual 12 Collabs Of Christmas venture, in which she shared 12 different videos co-starring online and traditional celebrities leading up to the holidays.
In an update video titled This Chan...

In April 2017, Amazon launched its Influencer Program -- an extension of its longstanding affiliate initiative -- that enables digital creators to receive commissions on the goods that they promote across YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. The Influencer Program differs from the affiliate program in that it also enables creators to helm their own custom shops with a vanity URL.
And now, a document obtained by Business Insider illuminates the incentives that the ecommerce giant is offe...

YouTube has revealed the celebrity-laden lineup of guest stars for Get Out writer and director Jordan Peele's upcoming YouTube Premium series Weird City.
The six-episode sci-fi anthology series (also co-created and co-written by Charlie Sanders, a writer on Peele's Key & Peele) is set in a future metropolis called Weird, and things there are pretty...well...you know. For the series' announcement back in June 2018, Peele described the project as a set of "comedy-driven twisted-ass...

After a number of complaints from Reddit users, YouTube says it has fixed a bug causing random videos to be recommended on users' homepages and in the 'up next' sidebar users see while watching videos.
Reddit threads about the issue have been popping up over the past day or so, with many users noting they'd been recommended gaming videos, but were not interested in video games, or had never watched content about the video games being specifically recommended. Other users reported they w...

Twitter has inked a new deal with the NBA and Turner Sports to put a unique twist on basketball match coverage.
Beginning with the 2019 NBA All-Star Game Feb. 17, Twitter will livestream regular-season and playoff matches — but instead of broadcasting the match traditionally, with multiple cameras following all of the game's action, Twitter will broadcast just one camera feed focused on a single player.
Featured players will be chosen by Twitter viewers prior to each match. The NBA hopes t...

Content licensing giant Jukin Media has hired a new general manager of brands -- a newly-created role.
In this capacity, former Comcast exec Craig Parks will oversee programming and strategy for all of Jukin's owned and operated media brands, including People Are Awesome (3 million YouTube subscribers), FailArmy (14.4 million subscribers), The Pet Collective (1.4 million), JukinVideo (2 million), and Poke My Heart (240,000). All told, Jukin says its brands count more than 160 million fol...

In 2015, stand-up comedian Drew Lynch was 'Golden Buzzered' straight to the live rounds of America's Got Talent Season 10 after impressing judge Howie Mandel with his skills. Lynch ended up coming in second place that year, and since his memorable run on the show, he's made a career on YouTube. On the platform, he's netted himself more than 1.6 million subscribers, and he garners between three and five million views per month with his series Dog Vlog (weekly vlogs about life with his l...

Rooster Teeth, the Austin-based media giant that launched a video game publishing division two years ago, has unveiled its latest title: a multiplayer first-person shooter called Vicious Circle.
Set in a gritty, sci-fi comic book universe, Vicious Circle marks the first original IP game from Rooster Teeth Games. Previous titles, such as RWBY: Grimm Eclipse, have been inspired by existing series -- such as the long-running anime RWBY. Vicious Circle was created by Michael Hadwin, the company'...

At the height of his career, Yousef 'FouseyTube' Erakat was one of YouTube's most synonymous stars, with massively-viewed pranks and vlogs that ultimately netted the 28-year-old upwards of 10 million subscribers.
However, since this summer, Erakat has all but disappeared from the internet after struggling with mental health issues. In April, Erakat announced that he was checking into rehab for addiction, depression, and bipolar disorder after soliciting suggestions for potential treatment...

Teespring, the ecommerce platform that operates a 'Merch Shelf' integration on YouTube -- which enables creators to design and vend merch directly below their videos -- has a new CEO.
The company has appointed Chris Lamontagne -- who previously served as Teespring's VP of commercial -- to the top role. Prior to joining Teespring in 2016 as director of growth and VP of commercial, Lamontagne held similar roles at ride-hailing startup Gett and the London-based venture capital firm Hambro P...

YouTube has named Viacom alum Kurt Patat its new global head of consumer and entertainment communications, a position where he'll direct all communications strategies and campaigns for YouTube's consumer, music, creator, and Originals teams.
Patat's main goal as global head is to bring more users to YouTube Premium and YouTube Music, per Variety. He'll also work with YouTube's partnership and entertainment team to set up collaborations between the platform and its creators.
His new p...

Twenty-year-old Ohio native Jaxon Trammell has built a formidable presence as a digital comedian, initially rising to fame on Facebook (136,000 followers) with clips in which he hilariously skewers viral videos, Donald Trump mishaps, and gob-stopping sports feats.
Despite the fact that he had surpassed 1 million Facebook followers, Trammell says that he ultimately had to relaunch his Facebook channel due to hacks and impostor accounts. Accordingly, Trammell -- who is known to followers simpl...

Hulu added 8 million new subscribers in 2018 -- marking 45% year-over-year growth -- for a grand total of 25 million paying subscribers at the end of fiscal 2018. This counts subscribers across both the company's SVOD and Live TV services. (Hulu is only available in the U.S.; for comparison's sake, Netflix most recently reported 58.5 million subscribers nationally).
At the same time, Hulu said that ad revenues had grown 45% year-over-year to nearly $1.5 billion in 2018 -- meaning that Hulu ...

Liza Koshy is creeping her way back onto YouTube after taking a lengthy hiatus from the platform with an update video on her second channel, Liza Koshy Too, in which the 22-year-old addresses her 7.5 million subscribers in an uncharacteristically serious tone.
In the clip, titled Why I Took A Break, Koshy touches on issues faced by many YouTubers before her, including creative burnout and mental health struggles. "I did lose my mind this year," she says. "I didn't post my struggles, I o...

BuzzFeed's morning news series AM To DM, which has aired weekdays on Twitter since September 2017, has been renewed through 2019, BuzzFeed and Twitter confirmed yesterday.
Hosted by Saeed Jones and Isaac Fitzgerald, AM To DM seeks to navigate the biggest news stories of the day "with heart and emotion that is often absent from cable news and morning television," BuzzFeed says. In the last year, the venture has produced roughly 200 shows and welcomed 500 guests including Kamala Harris, Noa...

LGBTQ+ streaming network Revry announced today that it has teamed up with equity crowdfunding platform SeedInvest to raise at least $250,000 in fresh funding, with a valuation cap of $9 million.
Revry launched in 2016 and offers a range of LGBTQ+-focused content, from series and films to music, short films, and podcasts, all made by queer creators. It's produced 3030, a '90s sitcom-inspired series about lesbian roommates, queer horror podcast Dead for Filth, dozens of original albums and songs...

Fresh off facing backlash for promoting a questionable mystery box website, Jake Paul has now seen his latest YouTube video, 24-Hour Bird Box Blindfold Challenge, age-restricted and demonetized for violating YouTube guidelines that prohibit content encouraging dangerous activities that could result in physical harm.
In the video, Paul participates in the controversial 'Bird Box Challenge,' an undertaking where participants blindfold themselves and go about their daily lives. It's based o...

Streaming services have had an impressive few years at the Golden Globes, and this year's, held last night, showed that things are only getting better for the likes of Amazon and Netflix.
The streamers took home a total of seven awards, two to Amazon and five for Netflix. On Amazon's side, Ben Whishaw won best supporting actor for his role in historical drama A Very English Scandal, and Rachel Brosnahan won best actress for her starring role in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, an award she also p...

MysteryBrand.net, the Polish mystery box website that came into the spotlight after paying YouTubers like Jake Paul and Bryan 'RiceGum' Le to promote it, has responded to an online uproar.
The service is reminiscent of the popular 'mystery box' trend on YouTube, where creators purchase boxes from sites like eBay and open their unknown contents on camera. It's also been compared to loot boxes in video games -- for which gamers can spend in-game currency (or, in some cases, actual mon...

YouTube is toying around with new voice command features.
In the latest edition of its Android app, rolling out now, voice search has received a new user interface as well as new navigational commands. Users who have received the update will see a pop-up prompt, and tapping the microphone icon will now load a fullscreen experience that looks like YouTube's dark mode, reports 9 To 5 Google, with a red button at the bottom of the screen that pulsates when users speak. Transcriptions of search q...

SoulPancake, the conscientious content purveyor, has announced two key additions to its senior leadership team amid a move into the Beverly Hills offices of its parent company, Participant Media. (Participant, the production firm behind films like Spotlight and The Help, acquired SoulPancake in 2016).
SoulPancake has today named Jordan Allen (pictured above) SVP of revenue, strategy, and operations, and Mick DiMaria its new VP and creative director. Allen will report to SoulPancake CEO Shabnam...

The reign of Carter Wilkerson, an 18-year-old who famously sought millions of retweets in order to win an annual supply of chicken nuggets from Wendy's, has come to an end.
Nearly two years after Wilkerson's successful plea on Twitter, which has received 3.6 million retweets (and 991,000 'likes') to date, he has been trumped by the Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, Bloomberg reports. Maezawa's two-day-old tweet serves to promote his online shopping business, Zozo, and also boasts an i...

Vimeo regularly spotlights notable works through its long-running Staff Picks initiative, in which the company's in-house curation team has recognized over 13,000 of the platform's most eye-catching films over the past 10 years.
Now, the ad-free video host is widening its scope with a revamped Best Of The Year Awards, whereby an external panel of industry leaders will -- for the first time -- select the seven best Staff Picks of 2018. The illustrious lineup of 21 judges includes Tony winner ...

For the sixth year, Tubefilter, Jukin Media, and Beachfront are putting on our annual CES kickoff party of the digital media set. Come eat, drink, and catch up with the digital entertainment community at the 2019 iteration of CES in Las Vegas, Nevada. Join executives and influencers in the digital entertainment industry and beyond for a CES 2019 cocktail party with open bar and hors d'oeuvres at the Clique Bar and Lounge in The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas.
Space is limited, but you can req...

Facebook Watch is set to turn a spotlight on teen dating within Utah's Mormon community in its latest docuseries, Mormon Love.
The show was produced by Leopard USA, the studio behind HGTV's House Hunters International, and will bow Jan. 13 on Watch -- Facebook's fledgling episodic video hub, which currently counts 75 million daily viewers globally who spend an average of roughly 20 minutes on the platform. Mormon Love will follow four different love stories, Deadline reports, as various m...

As it wades into new waters with the launch of a second game and the re-installation of co-founder Rus Yusupov as CEO following the untimely death of Colin Kroll, HQ Trivia confirmed that it has now taken in roughly $10 million in ad revenues to date.
The company just inked a $1 million deal with General Motors that will make it the exclusive auto sponsor for the first quarter of 2019, Variety reports. And to kick off the partnership on Tuesday, HQ Trivia will award a 2019 Chevy Silverado to on

Twitch appears to have re-banned an Australian streamer named Luke 'MrDeadMoth' Munday after he allegedly assaulted his pregnant partner in the midst of a live stream last month -- but not before Munday was temporarily allowed back on the platform.
Munday's second ban today was cheered by members of the Twitch community on social media (see below), though some expressed dismay that it had taken the platform so long to reach the decision after his temporary return to the service.
The alle...

Millions of people watched YouTubers Logan Paul and Olajide 'KSI' Olatunji duke it out in a six-round boxing match in Manchester Arena last August — and at least a million of those viewers watched illegally on Twitch.
The YouTube superstars' much-hyped fight ended in a draw. And although few details have been made public about their promised rematch (the amateur boxers said it would be in February and somewhere in the U.S.), the pair is currently trying to figure out a way to cut down on ...

Among more than 1,500 attendees at the Ad Council's 65th annual Public Service Award Dinner in December were Sam Golbach and Colby Brock, the self-dubbed big brothers of the internet.
Golbach and Brock, whose shared YouTube channel Sam and Colby has 2.1 million followers, are known for their videos exploring abandoned and empty places. But the duo was invited to the dinner (which raised a record $5.3 million dollars, recognized those who support the Ad Council and its many social good campai...

For the ninth year running, YouTube will serve as the exclusive livestreaming partner for Coachella -- the California music festival set to be headlined this April by Ariana Grande.
YouTube will once again stream both weekends of the festival, and for the first time will also vend Coachella tickets to a limited number of YouTube Music and YouTube Premium subscribers, beginning tomorrow at 11 am PT. Subscribers will receive access codes via email, and can purchase tickets on a first-come-first-s

Being an influencer was all the rage in 2018, a personal passion turned profitable and public profession for some, exhausting grind for many more. More importantly, the business of influencer marketing became much more significant and serious in 2018.
Advertisers and their agencies increasingly are integrating influencers into their marketing. They're involving more influencers more intensely and more frequently in delivering their brands' crucial messages. And they're expecting more in exchang

Brat, the tween-leaning digital studio founded by the entrepreneurs behind Twitter-owned influencer agency Niche, is set to release its next tentpole series, Zoe Valentine, on Jan. 16.
And while the studio's first runaway franchise, Chicken Girls, chronicles the trials and tribulations of a middle school dance troupe, Zoe Valentine will tread decidedly darker territory, following a magic-obsessed high schooler whose older sister dies from cancer, according to Teen Vogue. The series will star...

The pro-PewDiePie printer hacker is at it again.
After rigging a number of printers in Canada and the U.S. to spit out "subscribe to PewDiePie" flyers back in November to support him in his battle to stay YouTube's No. 1 most-subscribed-to creator, the person calling themself 'Hacker Giraffe' has drafted more than 5,500 smart TVs, Google Home devices, and Google Chromecast streaming devices into the PewDiePie army, per CNET.
Hacked devices push a message that reads, "Your Chromecas...

Tide pods are to YouTube as blindfolds are to Netflix.
The subscription giant has cautioned viewers against engaging in the 'Bird Box' challenge -- a social media meme inspired by its wildly popular Sandra Bullock thriller, which achieved record viewership with a reported 45 million accounts consuming the film upon its first week of release. In Bird Box, characters must wear blind folds in their daily lives so as not to be exposed to an evil force that compels victims to commit suicide.
In...

Colleen Ballinger has documented her pregnancy journey in both loving and gruesome detail over the past year, though it turns out there is a critical milestone that the 32-year-old may have omitted.
The YouTube star, best known for creating the Miranda Sings character, revealed that she secretly married fiance Erik Stocklin last year ahead of the birth of their first son, Flynn. In a recap video titled 2018 Was Hard (below), Ballinger reveals, "This year, I got pregnant and engaged and marrie...

Jack Black's new gaming-focused YouTube channel, Jablinski Games, has netted more than 2.5 million subscribers since Black started it a little less than two weeks ago.
The channel's announcement video (which, like all Black's videos, was shot and edited by his son, Sam) has garnered more than 7.5 million views, and Black's celebratory one million subscribers video has garnered 6.6 million — and is, at posting time, No. 11 on YouTube's Trending page. Both videos are less than a minut...

Need more proof that 15-year-old JoJo Siwa is making the transition from child superstar to mainstream YouTube heavyweight?
After receiving the collab stamp of approval from a slew of flagship YouTubers in December -- including Ace Family patriarch Austin McBroom, vlogger David Dobrik, and mukbang queen Trisha Paytas -- Siwa most recently made headlines for a public spat with one of the biggest stars on earth, Justin Bieber.
On Instagram last Friday, Bieber slammed a photo of Siwa's new BMW,...

The Iranian government is set to block Instagram -- which is the only major social media network that's still available across the nation.
Iran's National Cyberspace Council has approved the initial steps to bar the app, Bloomberg reports, noting that the photo and video-sharing platform will soon join the likes of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Telegram. Javad Javidnia, deputy for cyberspace affairs at the public prosecutor's office, confirmed the move to a local newspaper, reportedly cit...

Hours after cautioning his followers to "be safe tonight" on New Year's Eve, digital star Cameron Dallas tweeted out a mugshot, confirming reports that he'd been arrested and charged with felony second-degree assault.
Twenty-four-year-old Dallas, who rose to fame on Vine and is currently in the process of kickstarting a music career with the release of "Why Haven't I Met You?," allegedly punched another man in the face and broke his nose at a hotel in Aspen, Colo., over the weekend, re...

Massively-followed YouTubers Jake Paul (17.6 million subscribers) and RiceGum (10.8 million) are facing criticism after promoting MysteryBrands.com -- which offers a service some say is akin to gambling -- to their young viewers.
The site is inspired by YouTube's popular 'mystery box' trend, where creators blindly purchase, often for large sums of money, boxes from sites like eBay and unbox them on camera. With MysteryBrands.com, however, users select a box online and are able to see wh...

Netflix has reportedly poached Activision Blizzard executive Spencer Neumann to serve as its new CFO.
Neumann, who held the same role at the video game company for less than two years, is expected to join the streaming giant early this year, Variety reports. At Netflix, Neumann is replacing David Wells, who announced that he planned to step down last summer after 14 years at the company.
Activision Blizzard, which is behind titles like Call Of Duty and Candy Crush Saga, announced that it plann

Famous and infamous YouTuber Logan Paul has released his 2018 wrap-up video, looking back on his controversial behavior in a year he says was the "most important" of his life.
In the 15-minute upload (which has netted 3.2 million views in the day since it was posted), Paul reflects on the infamous January incident where he posted a vlog filmed in Japan's "suicide forest" that contained footage of the body of an apparent suicide victim. The video received major backlash, getting him cu...

Earlier this month, we found out Ninja spent a frankly superhuman amount of time streaming to his 12 million Twitch followers this year: more than 3,800 hours, the equivalent of 95 40-hour workweeks.
Now, thanks to data collected by The Esports Observer, we know those 3,800+ hours streamed translated to 226.85 million hours of collective watch time, making his channel Twitch's most watched of 2018.
In fact, Ninja (real name Tyler Blevins) garnered nearly two and a half times as many watch h...

This morning, Netflix dropped its first choose your-own-adventure film for adults, offering viewers more than one trillion unique combinations of Black Mirror: Bandersnatch's with a total of 300+ minutes of content.
The film is a longer-form iteration of the platform's hit mind-bending sci-fi series Black Mirror. Like every episode of the series, the Bandersnatch film revolves around themes of technology, creation, free will, and the feeling that something — or perhaps everything — is not...

Top YouTuber Markiplier has a storied history of mobilizing his sizable following to do good. Over the six years he's been on the platform, he's helped raise millions of dollars for charities like Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and Best Friends Animal Society, always contributing to causes right alongside his nearly 23 million subscribers.
Most recently, he invited his fans to join him for a Christmas charity livestream to raise money for Stand Up To Cancer, promising to ma...

Fortnite streamer Benjamin 'DrLupo' Lupo is continuing in the long tradition of gaming stars harnessing their massive platforms for charity.
Lupo, who counts 2.8 million followers on Twitch and 1.2 million YouTube subscribers, has raised a whopping $1.3 million for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, which helps children suffering from cancer and other life-threatening diseases. Beginning Dec. 22, Fortune reports, Lupo hosted a 24-hour #BuildAgainstCancer stream, in which fans from 85 ...

Instagram faced immediate backlash after mistakenly rolling out a test feature to a significantly larger number of app users than it intended to. The feature changed feed scrolling from vertical to horizontal, and made users tap each time they wanted to move to a new post.
"Seems maybe intended to reduce mindless vertical scrolling?" reporter Alex Heath tweeted (along with a sarcastic "I'm sure this will not be met with any backlash WHATSOEVER").
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